----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe Touch" <[email protected]> To: "Sam Hartman" <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 10:11 AM > > Perhaps we're not talking about an API, or even an abstract API, but > just the "application interface" (or just "upper layer service" > specification). > > RFC793 is a great example that a protocol provides a service, and that > service needs to be explained - and that explaining it does NOT need to > be done in a specific language.
Not a specific language, no, but in a highly recognisable could-be-a-language, at least for those of us old enough to recall the GoTo-less programming that preceded Object-Oriented programming. I could easily translate all those If-Then-Else and Return into (almost) any program language of the day (but not, perhaps, APL). And yes, it is still one of the great RFC; is that because it describes something that became rather popular or is it because it describes something so well that popularity was inevitable? Tom Petch > Joe _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
